Abstract
Food safety crises involving persistent organic pollutants [POPs, e.g. dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), organochlorine pesticides] lead to systematic slaughter of livestock to prevent their entry into the food chain. Therefore, there is a need to develop strategies to depurate livestock moderately contaminated with POPs in order to reduce such economic and social damages. This study aimed to test a POPs depuration strategy based on undernutrition (37% of energy requirements) combined with mineral oil (10% in total dry matter intake) in nine non-lactating ewes contaminated with 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) and PCBs 126 and 153. In order to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the depuration process, POPs kinetics and body lipids dynamics were followed concomitantly over 57-day of depuration in POPs storage (adipose tissue, AT), central distribution (blood) and excretion (faeces) compartments. Faecal POPs concentrations in underfed and mineral oil supplemented ewes increased by 2.0 to 2.6-fold, but not proportionally to lipids concentration which increased by 6-fold, compared to the control ewes. Nonetheless, after 57 days of depuration in undernutrition and mineral oil supplementation, AT POPs concentrations were 1.5 to 1.6-fold higher while serum concentrations remained unchanged compared to the control ewes. This was concomitant with a decrease by 2.7-fold of the AT estimated lipids weight along the depuration period. This reduction of the volume of the storage compartment combined with the increase of POPs faecal excretion in underfed and mineral oil supplemented ewes led to a reduction by 1.5-fold of the PCB 126 AT burden, while no changes were observed for TCDD and PCB 153 burdens (vs. no change for PCB 126 and increases for TCDD and PCB 153 AT burdens in control ewes). The original approach of this study combining the fine description at once of POPs kinetic and of body lipids dynamic improved our understanding of POPs fate in the ruminant.